I did some preliminary solid modeling of the base frame and wheel mounts. I plan to weld the base frame out of 1″ square tubing. I’ll need to have the wheel mounts made by a machine shop unless I can come up with a design that I can fabricate myself using my limited collection of tools. Next I plan on adding in the other half of the wheel mounts, the wheels, some of the steering components and then I’ll start working on the legs.

One thing I’ve been wanting for my workouts I do at home is an interval timer. Interval timers let you set two intervals, one for rest and one for exercise, and it cycles between timing the two durations so that you don’t have to stare at a clock and do the math in your head. I didn’t want to spend the money on a physical one considering most of my workouts would be in the same room as a computer so I looked on the internet to see if there was anything free I could use. Unfortunately nothing I could find that was free had the features I wanted (namely being able to set intervals), so I decide to create my own. For the first iteration I decided to just make a simple stopwatch that you could start, pause and reset.

A screenshot of the stopwatch program in action.

So this is what I came up with after a few drinks and a hour or two of coding. It is written in Java and uses SWT for the GUI. Pretty basic for now but I’m planning on adding interval functionality in the near future.

Some initial sketches of what I will be calling the “walker.” Main features are the two legs at the rear which will serve as the propulsion mechanism. The design of the legs come from Theo Jansen’s Strandbeests. The legs will be driven by a chopped up bicycle positioned between the legs in the rear and the two bicycle wheels up front. I’m planning on putting a bench/loveseat in between the front wheels but that will mostly depend on me getting the gearing correct so that I can actually peddle myself and two other people at a reasonable speed.